After the Ground Caved In
by katydidit
Summary: By the time Mr. and Mrs. Stokes had arrived and the team cleared out to give them privacy together, Sara had already disappeared. He seemed to be the only one who noticed. Everyone else was so exhausted, so drained, so giddy with relief, that she just seemed to have slipped their minds. But he couldn't stop thinking about her. Adult, but not overly graphic.


After, he lay there in the darkness and waited for the guilt to come.

He hadn't planned this. If anything, he had actually planned the very opposite of this. Briefly, he wondered what kind of monstrous man would do something like this, but the feeling wouldn't stick. He looked at her, turned on her side facing away from him with a pillow pulled into the hollow between her neck and shoulder. He tried to tell himself that things were irrevocably changed between them, but he knew better than that.

_At the hospital, she had been still and numb standing at the side of Nick's room while everyone else hovered around his bed. The contrast between her presence and the rest of the team had made her even more ghostlike: Catherine had refused to let go of Nick's hand once she'd taken it and Warrick had stood nearby as though standing guard. He would have expected Sara to behave similarly, or perhaps in some combination of everyone else, but she stood near the door, arms crossed tightly in front of her. She wouldn't even look at him._

_By the time Mr. and Mrs. Stokes had arrived and the team cleared out to give them privacy together, Sara had already disappeared. He seemed to be the only one who noticed. Everyone else was so exhausted, so drained, so giddy with relief, that she just seemed to have slipped their minds. But he couldn't stop thinking about her._

_Maybe it was unfair to Nick to allow someone else to monopolize his thoughts on tonight of all nights, but now that he'd been found safely, Grissom's mind was free to wander. The two topics most readily available for pondering was the way Sara had stood at the periphery of the room and kept her face carefully blank and the way his mind had gone blank with fear and some form of resignation when that bomb had gone off only hours before, and, although he spent most of his waking hours surrounded by death and corpses, Gil was only human in that he was reluctant to face his own death, so Sara was the easy choice. _

_Over the last day or so, he had not been wrought with the notion that it could have been Sara in that box underground. The whole team had been putting all of their efforts and energy into finding Nick. It wasn't until he was delivering the ransom money to that building that she had even really crossed his mind. But it wasn't as though he had been ignoring her, either. It was how they worked together, like extensions of the same person, or insects working together in a hive. She was just a fact of his life, of his mind. But now that the crisis was over, he found himself turning back to her. He had very nearly been blown up. He could have been killed and, for that matter, if the bomb had been much larger, she could have been too._

_He was still thinking of her as he got into his car and started driving, which would possibly explain why he found himself sitting in front of her apartment instead of his own house. There was one light on in the whole building, and he had a pretty good idea of who it belonged to, so, despite the logical and rational and self-preserving part of his brain that told him to go home already, he got out of his car and went into the building._

_When she answered the door, she didn't seem particularly surprised to see him. She had apparently just gotten out of the shower: her hair fell in damp curls around her face, and fragrant steam was wafting out of the bathroom door. She was wearing some kind of silky dressing-gown, and though he thought that maybe they should both be embarrassed about that, they weren't. She let him into the apartment without saying a word, and as soon as the door had clicked shut behind him, he was moving._

_Before his brain could stop him, he was stepping close to her—too close to her—and threading his fingers through the hair at her temples as he held her face in his hands. Her expression was unreadable, but at least she didn't look angry, or scared, as he lowered his lips to hers. There were a hundred thousand reasons against what he was doing at this very moment, but they'd all flown far away in favor of the one good reason for it. They needed it. He needed to feel her in his arms, and maybe she needed to know that the world wasn't all ugly._

_She was everything he'd known she would be: warm and strong where he pulled her body against his, sweet and dizzying where his tongue met hers, and, as time pressed on, she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him still closer. There were no thoughts of protocol or regulations or impropriety where they stood. There was only her body, and his, and the tentative need that began to grow between them._

He turned on his side to fit his body against hers and let his fingertips trail down the valley of her waist, the slow curve of her hip. She mumbled something in her sleep and shifted just slightly, but didn't wake up. He smiled. Her hair was still just this side of damp and the scent of her shampoo (something crisp and sharp as opposed to cloyingly sweet) mixed with the smell of clean sweat to form an aura around her that he couldn't drag himself away from. He buried his face in her hair and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, shyly grateful that she wasn't awake to see his behavior.

_She had pulled away first which he supposed was fair, given the length of time that he had been refusing her, and punched him square in the chest. It hurt. That was probably also fair._

"_You almost got yourself blown up," she accused. Her face was dark. "Twice. And I almost lost both of you today. What are you doing here?"_

_The knot in her belt had slipped, which allowed the silky material of her robe to slide open just a little bit. His eyes were drawn to the pale expanse of skin that had been exposed. He'd been tempted, deeply tempted in a way he hadn't felt in a long time, to push the whole thing off her shoulders and let it pool at her feet. He would finally see all of her. He was equal parts relieved and disappointed to note that he did still retain some of his self control and merely lifted his fingers to brush against her skin. She jumped a little, but, thankfully, only took one step away from him. She was waiting for an answer._

"_I almost got blown up today." Wasn't that explanation enough? He forced himself to raise his eyes to meet hers. She didn't understand. He took a step forward to close the distance between them again, and once again raised his hands to cup her face."And just before I did, all I could think of was you." He allowed his thumbs to brush along her cheekbones. "And I am stupid, Sara, but...I'm here." _

_The air between them was heavy. He could practically see her mind working, struggling to figure out exactly what he meant. It probably would have been easier if he himself had known what he meant. But tonight, for the first time in his life, thinking felt unnecessary. He was a scientist, used to logic and structure and the Way Things Were Supposed to Be, but at that very moment, the only thing he wanted was to feel her lips against his again. And so he kissed her, and that must have been the right thing to do, because she responded immediately and enthusiastically, with her arms tightening around his neck again as he walked them backwards towards her bed. _

_When the backs of her legs knocked against the edge of the bed, he stopped, and his hands made quick work of the already deteriorating knot that held her robe in place. She shrugged the material off of her arms and tossed it aside, which left her standing before him bare in all senses of the word. He felt like he couldn't breathe. He had spent years fighting the urge to imagine what she would look like like this, but reality surpassed every fantasy that had ever slipped through. Something in the back of his mind told him that he should feel ashamed for daring to touch someone so young, so perfect, but, selfishly, he placed his hands on her hips. She rested her own hands on his for a moment, before raising them to pull his shirt up over his head. She didn't even give him time to feel shy or uncomfortable about his aging body before pressing her mouth against his neck. Her nails dug lightly into his back when she held him, and they could both feel his need pressing against her. _

_The rest of the night was a bit of a blur, all fingertips and skin and mouths and the soft desperate noises she made that drove him crazy. He'd known this woman for years, had trusted her with his life knowing that she trusted him with the same, but this...this was an entirely new side of her. That knowledge drove him ever forward. He wanted to see, taste, touch every inch of her. He wanted to learn her reactions and memorize her motions until every single aspect of her was cataloged perfectly in his memory, but if that proved to be impossible, he would accept this one night._

_When they moved together, it felt as seamless as it did when they were working together. She clutched at his back and sank her teeth into his shoulder as she locked her legs around his hips, and he was glad to suffer the mild injuries at her hands. They were a constant reminder that this was real. That she was there beneath him, alive and breathing and even, if he dared to think it, taking as much pleasure in him as he was in her. He busied his lips with exploring the side of her neck until she started pushing against his chest, trying to turn them over. _

_If he had been marveling at the sight of her beneath him, the sight of her sitting astride him, breathless and flushed and grinning, was very nearly his undoing. Maybe he said her name, or maybe he only thought it, but then she started moving and his hands found her hips and conscious thought flew from his mind once again. Because she moved with a grace and a confidence that, of course, he should have expected from her but which still took him off guard. When he felt himself nearing the edge, he reached between them and touched her to bring her with him. Finally she collapsed on top of him as she breathed through the last few waves. _

"_God, you're beautiful when you come," he managed as he stroked her back. His cheeks burned only a little at the forwardness of such a comment. He felt her laugh, or maybe just exhale, against his shoulder, and then she fell silent. He kept touching her—he couldn't drag his hands away from her, now that they'd learned the softness of her skin—and waited to feel something that would shatter the quiet calm that had fallen between them. _

_It didn't come. _

_After a bit of awkward maneuvering and hasty clean up, Sara had disappeared into the bathroom. He had remained stretched out, surprisingly comfortable in her bed. He listened to the faucet and to the sound of her brushing her teeth and tried to tell himself not to get used to those little sounds of domesticity. This would have to end in the morning, wouldn't it?_

_She seemed surprised to see him when she came out of the bathroom: she froze in her tracks for just a moment and her eyes widened somewhat when they met his. _

"_You're...still here." _

_He sat up, confused. "Did you want me to leave?" He kicked himself mentally as he slid out of her bed and stooped to gather his abandoned clothing. Maybe it had to end even sooner than the morning._

"_No!" Her voice was too loud, and he had to look up again. She took a moment to compose herself, and offered an embarrassed smile. "No. I wanted you to stay. I just figured you'd...come to your senses or something and leave while I was..." She gestured towards the bathroom._

"_No. I'm not that kind of man." He kept his voice level. "And I know you didn't really think that I was."_

_She was quiet as she picked up her robe and slid her arms through it, though she didn't bother to knot it around her waist. "No. I kind of just thought that it'd be too much to hope for you to still be here when I got out. I didn't...want to get my hopes up." It was only then that she ventured to look at him again. "What does this mean?"_

_He sighed and sank back down onto her mattress. "I don't know. That I'm tired of denying this. I'm tired of denying you. I want you, and today I realized that there was no reason to keep pretending that I don't. I know we can find a way to make it work. If I'm not too late."_

_She was quiet for too long. It was hard to believe that maybe all she'd wanted from him tonight was a one-night thing, but that was where his mind headed as the seconds ticked by. Finally, finally, he heard her soft footsteps approaching him, and then she was kneeling in front of him, to try to look into his eyes._

"_You're not too late," she murmured, and then turned her attention to his hand, which she folded in both of hers. "I don't think you could ever be too late."_

Still surrounded by darkness, he splayed his fingers against her hip and pulled her closer, then slid his hand up along her stomach to cup one of her breasts lightly. It probably wasn't fair to do this while she was sleeping, especially on tonight of all nights, but there was so much wasted time that he needed to make up for that it felt almost as wrong to refrain from touching her.

She mumbled something else, and her hand came up to close around his wrist. Her grip seemed too strong for her to be asleep, so he leaned forward slightly to study her face. Her eyes were definitely closed, but her face was also screwed up in pain—or fear. He shook her lightly. "Sara, what's wrong?" She let go of his arm, so he reached up to brush her hair back. It was only then that she stirred again, and sniffled quietly as he eyes opened and sought his in the darkness.

"You're here." She smiled sleepily, and it struck him just how privileged he was to see this side of her. He could have kissed her again and again. And there was nothing stopping him. For now, he satisfied himself with one soft kiss to the side of her mouth.

"I'm not going anywhere. You were dreaming?"

A nod. "Nick. He was still in that box and we found him, but we were too late." She rubbed some of the sleep out of her eyes and turned to face him. "He'd used the gun."

He wanted to pull her in close and maybe find some other way to distract her from the images her own mind was torturing her with, but it didn't seem like it was the right time. Instead, he sighed and caressed her cheek, noting the way her eyes fluttered closed at the touch. He didn't even bother to patronize her with something like 'Nick is fine, we found him and saved him' because they both knew that already. Sometimes a person's subconscious just needed to work through things on its own, away from the platitudes and common sense of the waking world. He searched his mind for something more reassuring to say, but continued to come up empty. Maybe that was okay, though, he realized, as he heard her breathing even out again. She'd spent most of her life without anyone to soothe her after her nightmares and remind her that the monsters weren't real: why would she expect it tonight?

He closed his eyes and stroked his fingers along her spine. This was unfamiliar territory, not to mention incredibly dangerous for the both of them, but he couldn't help but think that, if it meant he could keep holding her like this, it was worth it.

She was worth it.


End file.
